A federal judge yesterday “granted a 10-day temporary restraining order forbidding publication in the United States of a new book by a Swedish author that contains a 76-year-old version of Holden Caulfield while she considers arguments in a copyright-infringement case filed by [J.D.] Salinger. … ‘It does seem to me that Holden Caulfield is quite delineated by words, that is a portrait by words,’ Judge Batts told the lawyers. ‘It would seem that Holden Caulfield is copyrighted.'”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
Absent Guarantees, London Auction Estimates Dive 70%
“London art sales this month have estimates that are 70 percent lower than last year as auction houses abandon guaranteed prices, deterring sellers,” who are showing a preference for private sales. “The auction houses expect to make at least 100.9 million pounds ($165 million) in total. The equivalent sales last year had a low valuation of 334.7 million pounds.”
Judge Rebukes MoMA, Guggenheim, Claimant In Restitution
“A memo by U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff lambasting a secret settlement involving New York’s Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum has become the talk of the Holocaust restitution community. The museums announced a confidential pact with a German historian named Julius H. Schoeps and his relatives on Feb. 2…. Seven weeks later, in a six-page written judicial opinion tinged with sarcasm, Rakoff questioned the motives of both sides.”
Women, Especially Over 40, Scarce In Theatre, Film And TV
“Female actors, especially those over 40, are still under-represented on TV, film and in theatre and when they do get a break it is often in a stereotypical role, a conference on the subject heard today. Hundreds of women, from actors to directors to writers, gathered at the National Theatre to hear depressing statistics reeled off: 17% of playwrights are women; 38% of stage roles are for women; 35% of TV roles are for women; of the top 250 films last year only 9% were directed by women.”
Those Indie Best Sellers Might Not Be Best Sellers After All
“When writer and Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Lisa Scottoline (Look Again) asked who she had to sleep with to get on the Indie Bestsellers Lists at the opening panel of the day of education at BEA, she pointed up what some consider to be a flaw in the American Booksellers Association’s bestsellers list: it is weighted so that it doesn’t reflect raw sales.”
Milwaukee’s Skylight Opera Eliminates Artistic Director Job
“The Skylight Opera Theater has eliminated the position of artistic director, held since August 2004 by William Theisen, a Milwaukee native and a popular figure here. The artistic director’s duties will be consolidated under the general director, Eric Dillner, according to an e-mail Dillner sent Tuesday evening.”
Sans Crosswalk, Art Institute Visitors Risk Their Safety
“Ever since plans for the [Art Institute of Chicago’s] Modern Wing were unveiled eight years ago, I’ve been harping on the need to bring pedestrians safely between Millennium Park and the wing, either through a tunnel or a mid-block crosswalk. And I’m not the only one. In a phone call Tuesday from the Paris office of the Modern Wing’s architect, Renzo Piano, his staff confirmed that Piano has personally asked Mayor Richard Daley for a crosswalk.” Without it, 90-year-olds are jaywalking there now.
Unable To Fund Season, North Shore Music Theatre Closes
“North Shore Music Theatre, which during its heyday was the largest nonprofit theater in the region, announced yesterday that it failed to raise enough money to reopen this summer and will close for good.” The shuttering of the 54-year-old company “leaves a huge hole in the arts scene on the North Shore, where as many as 350,000 people a year attended the theater’s slate of lavishly produced musicals staged in the round.”
Poets Tell Weirdest Places They’ve Done It (No, Not That)
“Benjamin Zephaniah did it stuck in a lift with a drag queen, Phillis Levin in a car on the side of a mountain, Patience Agbabi 20,000 feet above sea level in a spasm of guilt about her carbon footprint, and Kenneth Steven did it in his head during a sermon in church. Poets don’t need a tranquil room of their own to write, the Ledbury Poetry festival has proved, by asking this year’s participants for the most unlikely physical location in which they have practised their art.”
How Do Tories Value The Arts? What’s Their Arts Policy?
Tory MP Ed Vaizey, the shadow arts minister, seems to be on a charm offensive, which he explains this way: “One of the goals I have set Âmyself is, if the Tories win on a Thursday, there will be far fewer people in the arts world waking up in a cold sweat on a Friday.” Whether they’d be right to be fearful is another question, which could only be answered by the party’s actions.